A500
by Abraxas Qlippoth
Summary: A series of oneshots/drabbles/etc written in reply to prompts at the Avatar 500 Contest LJ Comm.
1. Index

**001** **Tea Was Not On Their Minds** | **T** | **Words**: 421 | **Posted**: 2010-04-15  
Zuko and Katara fight like cats and dogs; everyone thinks it's just because they're from opposing elements but is it just a cover under which to pursue a very steamy relationship?

**002** **Game** | **T** | **Words**: 508 | **Posted**: 2010-05-05  
Aang and Koh play a game of Paisho - but is it a game and can the Avatar win?

**003** **It** | **T** | **Words**: 520 | **Posted**: 2010-05-22  
(set in the very distant future) The struggle between good and evil was always settled by the Avatar. But what happens when science and technology supress spirituality? And who, exactly, is responsible - who benefits?

**004** **You Started It** | **T** | **Words**: 514 | **Posted**: 2010-06-03  
Sokka is confounded by Zuko after many failed attempts to entice the prince. Will a secret sparring match at night finally overcome the obstacle keeping them apart?  
**Avatar 500 2010 Obstacle 2nd Place**

**005** **Tyranny Of Man** | **T** | **Words**: 519 | **Posted**: 2010-06-25  
There are different kinds of tyrants that reek havok on their victims and not all of them are individuals - Sokka and Katara use the privacy of their fishing trips to bond in a way forbidden by the rules of society.

**006** **This Means War!** | **T** | **Words**: 501 | **Posted**: 2010-06-28  
What if Sokka and Suki wrote their own fiction?

**007** **A Whole Wide World To Search** | **T** | **Words**: 460 | **Posted**: 2010-07-30  
(post!canon) Katara and Zuko develop a very unique way to cope with the death of the Avatar.

**008** **What Will History Say?** | **T** | **Words**: 333 | **Posted**: 2010-08-21  
Zhao asks Piandao to speak to Jeong Jeong after he attempts to desert the army.  
**Avatar 500 2010 Honor 3rd Place**

**009** **A Marriage Of Inconvenience** | **T** | **Words**: 505 | **Posted**: 2010-09-02  
(post!canon) What if Azula and The Cabbage Man joined forces in an over-the-top 'war' against the Avatar?

**010** **Korra's Nightmare** | **T** | **Words**: 98 | **Posted**: 2010-09-16  
Koh traces the ills of Republic City right back to the Avatar's inability to keep the world balanced.

**011** **The Call Of The Hawk-Lizard** | **M** | **Words**: 497 | **Posted**: 2010-11-10  
What if Jin Wei and Wei Jin had been a couple that struggled to keep their love a secret? What if that secret was why their tribes hated each other? Can their love survive despite everything that happened?

**012** **All Sorts Of Places** | **M** | **Words**: 514 | **Posted**: 2010-11-20  
Hamma is driven mad by her love for a Fire Nation soldier and bloodbending.

**013** **It's Not Even Cut** | **M** | **Words**: 514 | **Posted**: 2010-12-14  
Sokka and Zuko relax and tend their wounds after a vigorous round of fighting.

**014** **Night Into Day** | **T** | **Words**: 465 | **Posted**: 2011-01-15  
Sokka journeys into the center of the Antarctic where all of the chiefs go to meet their destiny.

**015** **Everything Will Be OK** | **T** | **Words**: 505 | **Posted**: 2011-01-27  
It doesn't take much to inspire a Zuko-obsession about Aang. While meeting the last fire-bending dragons, a touch awakens a desire for Aang that Zuko could not imagine. Now, as his office and duty threaten his happiness - and the opportunity to act seems to be fading - can he find love in the arms of the only other person he wanted?

**016** **The Story About The Stache** | **T** | **Words**: 518 | **Posted**: 2011-02-06  
Katara struggles with an obsession about Haru's stache - which remained latent until taunting and prodding by a (deflecting) Toph reawakens it.

**017** **Sokka Meets Ursa** | **T** | **Words**: 506 | **Posted**: 2011-02-26  
(post!canon) Along the way to Ba Sing Se, Sokka saves Ursa from a robber.

**018** **Is She Beautiful?** | **T+** | **Words**: 513 | **Posted**: 2011-09-01  
What really caused Kuruk and Koh to turn against each other? Jealousy? Envy? Kuruk finds Koh on a dark and stormy night when he crashes onto a mysterious island. After that they engage in a serious if secret relationship. What happens when Koh senses Kuruk is moving on to another relationship?

**019** **A Lot** | **T** | **Words**: 267 | **Posted**: 2011-11-02  
Sokka gives Zuko something that the gloomy young prince seems to need a lot of...

**020** **Rhythm Of Nature** | **M** | **Words**: 330 | **Posted**: 2011-12-03  
Zuko and Sokka share an intimate moment at the garden where their relationship started as youths.

**021** **Reunion** | **K+** | **Words**: 512 | **Posted**: 2012-01-02 ** NEW **  
After Toph's death, her daughter returns home to reconnect with family.  
**Avatar 500 2012 Never 3rd Place**

**022** **The Event** | **T+** | **Words**: 453 | **Posted**: 2012-01-28 ** NEW **  
Zuko drags Sokka out of bed to catch a very rare event.

**023** **Rage** | **K** | **Words**: 294 | **Posted**: 2012-02-07 ** NEW **  
Toph is upset at the way her mother and father, and Master Yu, and everybody treats her as if she were nothing...

**024** **The Owl And The Man** | **T** | **Words**: 510 | **Posted**: 2012-02-25 ** NEW **  
Zei and Wan Shi Tong spend eternity together... Not a linear time line; implies somewhat man/owl and that maybe man is not man anymore?

**025** **Regret Nothing** | **T** | **Words**: 433 | **Posted**: 2012-04-21 ** NEW **  
post!canon Zuko/Katara; Zuko and Katara spend a little time together and certain facts about their past come to light...

**026** **This Way We Are** | **T** | **Words**: 472 | **Posted**: 2012-06-05 ** NEW **  
In a world that cannot accept their love, they are free to be together only in the silences between the moments of their lives...  
**Avatar 500 2012 Blue 3rd Place**

**027** **Each Other** | **T** | **Words**: 454 | **Posted**: 2012-06-30 ** NEW **  
The last Avatar does not face the end of the world alone...  
**Avatar 500 2012 Fire 2nd Place**


	2. Tea Was Not On Their Minds

**001** **"Tea Was Not On Their Minds"** by **Abraxas** 2010-04-15

The argument - why it started again they could not say. They were children of water and fire. Friends just assumed their confrontation was natural.

That day the tempest they stirred concerned tea. Zuko claimed it was fire nation, Katara insisted it was water tribe. Toph sipped indifferent about it all. Everyone knew it was invented in the earth kingdom and that was that. No need to brag.

The argument itself unfolded uniquely.

Zuko questioned with a spark. Not too much to melt the igloo - they were at the pole. Katara replied with a mist. It froze and pelted like hale. The pit under the kettle sizzled and smoked only to be relit again and again.

Toph sighed; it seemed the girl already saw that fight...yes, it must have been the fourth incarnation of it.

When their tactics failed the elements upped the ante so to speak. The kettle alternately iced and steamed. The igloo brightened with Zuko only to be darkened by Katara. There were no words at that point; just looks, flicks of wrists and, maybe, snorts.

The kettle cracked - not that tea was ever on anyone's mind.

Toph left to find Sokka. It was noontime and surely he must be driving the kids insane building new watchtowers and whatnots. Always fun to watch Sokka get owned by the tikes.

At last the Avatar peaked into the igloo - now deformed by their bending.

There was Zuko. Soaked and, despite the frigidity, shirtless. There was Katara. Steamed as hair and everything got frizzed by humidity.

Aang paused at the entrance with that "what did I get into" look but something had to be done.

"Guys, this is getting ridiculous, you two need to stop and just appreciate your elemental differences already."

Aang sighed and shook; he thought he made a lot of sense and maybe one of those days they'd take his advice.

"I think Aang left - no - I'm not turning my eyes to look," said Zuko.

"I'm not turning my eyes to look, too," Katara said.

"Then! Then?"

Even as he spoke the next round of battle commenced: water girl and fire boy neared like mirrors reflecting each other move by move.

Then - not caring if they were watched they met lip to lip.

Between breaths -

"Think they know," asked Zuko.

"Toph figured out," replied Katara.

They slipped on a puddle of water and Katara landed atop Zuko!

She pinned his wrists behind his head.

"Damn it...you always get the last word..."

**END**


	3. Game

**002** **"Game"** by **Abraxas** 2010-05-05

Beast and Avatar meet at a field of battle.

Silence - until that innocent string of words: "I want to play a game."

Paisho.

They set tiles carved with faces. Aang's: Avatars too remote to name. Koh's: images of friends and family. Words are not spoken - terms are not reached - the game simply _begins_.

"Avatar," Beast studies a move. "You think victory over a _king_ changes anything? Your bravery is doubt masked. Where is that boy who vanished? There, still, _and I know it_."

Koh advances Toph leaving Sokka by Zuko.

Aang sits watching, waiting.

"Why do you do this?"

Koh stretches. Thin, long legs bristle like branches of trees. Rusty. Prickly. Leaving the relic of a dull yet rhythmic timbre.

"You are not the center of creation, my Aang, yet you question as if worthy of answer. The Universe does not justify itself..."

Beast is lifeless at the juvenile's suggestion of emotion. A twitch of the lip. A flash of teeth. It does not satisfy. It is not enough to merely defeat Avatar.

The youth looks up across the demon's tiles - now a mix of old and new faces - as his own pieces seem fewer in number.

Years show their passage through the hesitation that accompany each and every reply.

_I erode you like waves tumble mountains_.

"The world was mine before man took breath and it will be mine again... I work through ages even _you_ cannot fathom - you can no more defeat me than stop sunset - I am chaos and the void that comes to you all. Embrace it. As you did once."

_There is fear within you, my Aang, as there is throughout the world. It is my doorway into that other realm. My work... My art... It is through the doubts of man that they take form. I thrived when you turned away._

Aang gazes blankly as words spew out of Koh.

A hand hovers above the tiles not knowing where to go, what to do.

_Yes. Yes. Take your time..._

Beast relishes the move - advancing Katara.

Avatar had been avoiding the fight but the confrontation cannot be delayed any longer. He is forced to act against his wife or by paralysis throw the match. Without a word he strikes and the tile melts into smoke.

"How many ages do we play this game?"

Aang does not answer.

Yet to Koh it is clear. His handiwork is all over the old man's face in the lines that history carved out of his youth. Beast is active in the chaos that follows the fall of empires. Avatar knows working toward peace is harder than fighting a war. It is endless. Endless. Endless.

Now it seems as if the enemy controls more than just the tiles on the board.

"It's not too late, my Aang, run away! You never wanted to be Avatar. You doubted everything then _and now_. Do not continue it. Let it slip away."

Avatar arises.

Beast, unaged, smiles.

"Know I'm always here _my Avatar_."

**END**


	4. It

**003** **"It"** by **Abraxas** 2010-05-22

The Avatar walked the avenue. He trekked oblivious to everything except sky - those parts of it free of construction. Only a crack of the moon eked through that clutter man made of the world. While it offered comfort he shuddered at what its degradation represented: the untenable detachment to Nature.

A tugging - it came out of nowhere.

He stopped at a corner and slipped into a crowd. Nobody noticed the intrusion of the Avatar. It had been that way generations. At most a handful of people knew who and what he was. If they believed...that was another matter. Was there a time when the Avatar was important?

A feeling - it echoed up from below.

In spite of their ignorance - or, perhaps, because of it - he was important and his purpose remained.

Traditions were not lost, instead, they shifted as science displaced mystery and men found new gods and monsters to worship. Technology completed their conversion as it taught them to forget how to bend. Where it was not suppressed by society it was considered to be deviance.

Walking with the crowd, as they ambled isolated from each other by their gadgets, he could not help but condemn them - it was as if they surrendered.

_"Why, man," spake the voice of the nightmare. "He is the weakest of creation. A failed species."_

It was not a dream but the memory of another life.

He was impelled by instinct to enter a subway. A train approached. Alone - he melted through the concrete and landed onto the platform. The train stopped. Passengers shuffled about. The Avatar joined the commuters.

The train crawled out of the station.

Then, slowly and certainly, that unquiet, intangible lure metastasized into a very familiar shape. Their eyes locked. Their bodies drew together. Although they drowned amid a sea of faces in truth there were only two aboard: he and it.

The Avatar and the Creature clung onto a pole. The figure's hood withdrew either by accident or by design. It revealed a face that mirrored the man. Hairless with distinctive tribal markings like arrows seared into flesh. Only the eyes differed - white opposed to his own black. Otherwise it was the same exact face always. He thought it was to mock but the creature kept that purpose to itself.

Seeing it again he was reminded of the rest of the nightmare.

_"Why don't you kill me..."_

"Kill you? Never... I am undyingly devoted to you as you to me!"

They followed each other like night followed day. Now they stood face to face without a word. After ten thousand generations what was left unsaid?

Their relationship was simple. They were indeed devoted to each other in a bizarre yet undying way. Between them the world was balanced...or...should have been. How much of man's fall was its doing the Avatar could not say.

"My stop," Koh whispered - a smile warping it face.

The Avatar followed the Beast with eyes as it snaked out of the station.

**END**


	5. You Started It

**004** **"You Started It"** by **Abraxas** 2010-06-03

Zuko could be dense, Sokka thought, especially that week.

Sitting on the courtyard. Oiling off the blade. Sokka questioned everything that happened those last few days. True, men preferred explicit over implicit, and were not known to be perceptive of subtlety, nevertheless signal after signal seemed obvious. A few appeared reciprocated. Yet why did Zuko shrink away?

He wiped the sword as taught by Piandao. It reflected the moon as if it were sun. At last ready he sheathed the long black weapon.

"Coming?" asked Zuko. He stood by the fountain - each hand clutched a blade, each tip skimmed the ground.

Sokka nodded.

How dense was Zuko? All the touches here and there, sure, it could have been mistaken as jocular camaraderie. If there was anything Sokka learned that year it was the rites of passage that bonded warriors around the world - it was part of the culture. From the Poles and the Swamps to Ba Sing Se - indeed Piandao exalted the honor of that practice.

Sokka laughed at Zuko's joke then the favor was returned. He showed the prince through the temple - even though he scarcely knew the layout - even though the exile probably already memorized it. But why did Zuko allow it? And idle about its many remote chambers? They bunked next to each other ostensibly to keep warm - ridiculous as it was.

Then came a striking connection - when they shared a cup of tea. Jasmine tea! They saw each other sip out of the cup. They knowingly and willingly shared it, passing it back and forth, and everyone saw it.

It was like Zuko blocked any kind of intimacy. But the invite to a spar was accepted. And Sokka hoped it would be the venue to undo that distance.

The arena, afar of the temple, was well-chosen as the ruckus would have stirred an audience. They started without a formal set of rules. They just played, metal slamming metal. Swords clanging. Bodies pressing. Legs entwining while feet fought their own battle.

Zuko's shirt fell. Sokka's cloak ensued. They worked into a frenzy. The rest of their clothes limped then tumbled aside.

Their weapons connected and though exhausted they remained locked. Neither was willing to break away. They did not realize they were almost naked until their skin smothered their bodies. Still - the stance was not broken.

Zuko's blades slipped through his fingers. Sokka's sword tumbled off of his hands. All obstacles between them vanished. Zuko did not waste a moment to embrace Sokka. Sokka, intoxicated by excitement, drew Zuko tight and hard. There was no kiss although their lips danced across their cheeks. They sounded like animals as their bodies gave into impure, lustful reflexes.

Sokka shattered the distance with a kiss that breached Zuko's lips.

"Damn it, kid, I thought you'd never make a move!" Zuko replied tasting the sweat on Sokka's face.

"Me? You were waiting for me?"

Zuko smiled, "Well, yeah, you started it..."

Sokka sighed - and rested his chin on his shoulder.

**END**


	6. Tyranny Of Man

**005** **"Tyranny Of Man"** by **Abraxas** 2010-06-25

Why did she come along? She could have practiced the art at the village and avoided that entire risk of death through a trek to sea. Perhaps it was her nature, encouraged by Gran Gran, to resist a role that society dictated. Maybe she helped a little here and there too.

But the boy was the hunter and skilled - their going together was more burden than helpful. The curious fact was that everyone noticed the situation but nobody questioned it. Circumstances were too dire to worry about the norm...whatever it was. Besides, who was to complain? The men were off to war.

Sokka teased the hair where it looped at the temple. Katara slapped the hand away. Undeterred, as if emboldened, he lowered his arm across her waist, hugging from behind, gazing to infinity - that vast universe above. The embrace lingered. The stars did not mind it.

The boat passed through narrow, arcing passages carved by tide then arrived at a bay. The water was calm - only a trickle of ice scarred that fluid sheet of onyx. At distant shores of rocks, where land sloped into oblivion, starlight shimmered across the snow and lent it an eerie impression.

There was nothing to be found everywhere, forever, amid the sprawl of that antarctic winter wasteland. Cold. Barren. And immense.

Katara turned her head and her lips brushed Sokka's face - their breath, like smoke, intermingled into a cloud and vanished.

The sprout of a whale. Its exhaust sprayed the boat. Shocked, as if out of a dream, they parted and set to do their work. They looked ashamed as they jostled about, trying to ignore each other in that tiny little boat.

Love is chaos, striking like a storm, ravaging the lives of its victims. It happened randomly and always where it seemed apt to fail. It maddened those ill-fated with a desire that could be met.

They denied it only to discover that their suppression intensified their hunger. They gave into it a little day by day. Yet they knew it was not meant to be accepted. Even if they lived a millennia a simple accident of birth crushed what the cosmos fated.

She tugged his ponytail but he did not fight her tease. Instead he dragged her body toward his body. They lay, side by side, embraced along the length of the boat. They floated through the tide dragged by the tugs at the nets.

"Maybe, if we left the village," she mused, "and started anew."

"Where do you get that idea?" he laughed.

Afloat together they were free to dream. Despite their midnight idyllic fantasies there was no illusion of a future - a stable kind of future where they would be accepted. It did not matter where they ran as the rules did not change. Ages ago and without their consent their union was deemed impossible by a society that abhorred deviance. It was easier to fight the Fire Nation than rebel against the tyranny of man.

**END**


	7. This Means War!

**006** **"This Means War!"** by **Abraxas** 2010-06-28

A box arrived at the village. It was addressed to Suki. Sokka and Katara studied it. The two did not dare look inside - the warrior would have killed them before the wrapping was off! Instead they shook and listened to it.

"Um, is that my box?" Suki asked as she crawled into the igloo.

"Yeah..." Sokka fidgeted. "We were just keeping it warm..."

"Cute!" she pinched the Eskimo's cheek. "It's my subscription to the Kyoshi Examiner Monthly."

Sokka blinked. _Subscription_? _Kyoshi Examiner Monthly_? _What weird Earth Kingdom stuff is that_?

"What weird Earth Kingdom stuff is that?"

Suki giggled while digging through the box.

"Ah, Spring Edition #1!" Excitedly she broke the seal and scanned the words. "Yes!"

Sokka munched on a chunk of jerky.

"They published my story!"

"You wrote a story?" Katara asked while examining a scroll - the Avatar Celebration Edition.

"It's called fan fiction - I discovered it after that play we watched at Ember Island. People all over the world write stories about the Avatar and other public figures. It's called fan fiction. I wrote a story about us. Well...about a couple of us."

Suki showed the copy to Sokka who alternately munched and read.

"Er, Suki, why am I thinking about Zuko like that? Why are we sparring? Why are we stripping? Suki!"

The bowl of meat tumbled onto the floor.

"It's a story about boy boy love," she explained. Sokka's jaw dropped. Katara giggled. "Zuko and Sokka is popular."

"Zuko Sokka?" A gasp. A blush. "Two can play this game," he said and huffed out of the igloo.

That morning Sokka dropped a scroll at the courier.

Life returned to a state of normal except that Sokka kept teasing Suki about her wanting two guys and how ridiculous the whole Zuko Sokka pair was. If he was going to be slashed, he insisted, it should be with Jet. Suki raised an eyebrow and asked to know about why that was. But nothing came of that. And soon the excitement of fan fiction seemed to end.

And then a new batch of issues arrived!

GranGran put the box at the table. Now Suki and Sokka competed at tearing it apart. They looked at each other like wrestlers about to drop a move. They grabbed a scroll and tugged it back and forth. Until Sokka spotted a certain Winter Edition #3 and took that instead.

"You know, Suki, I started to explore the world of fan fiction too."

"Is that so?" she asked.

Katara and Aang uttered a gulp.

GranGran 'hmmm'ed as she stirred the pot.

"You're not the only one who writes the spicy fan fiction." He unfurled the scroll and pointed to the work. Titled: 'Prison! My Summer of Love' by Sokka. "I found something even better than Zukko."

Smirking. Laughing. Suki took hold of the manuscript. Suddenly the grin evaporated.

"Yeah," Sokka gloated, "it's called Suki Ty Lee! And it's the latest ship taking the world by storm!"

Suki glared...

"OK, mister, this means war!"

**END**


	8. A Whole Wide World To Search

**007** **"A Whole Wide World To Search"** by **Abraxas** 2010-07-30

The ship was tiny. Outdated. Ancient. It was the last of its kind, taken out of salvage, to fill a void left by the war. Only a few understood what it meant to Zuko as it carried the leader of the nation about the world.

Zuko waved at Sokka and Suki and with that the ship left the port.

"To the Republic City?" asked the helmsman.

"No!" replied the firelord. Suddenly stirred awake as if out of a dream. As he watched the great Northern city withdrew, swallowed by mountains of white. "That place disturbed the Lady. Go south. Slowly. Slowly."

Zuko retreated into a stateroom - the daylight outside juxtaposed the onyx inside as the cold battled the warm interior.

Katara stood by the window.

"A hundred thirty seven were born that day."

She held the necklace against the light. That wooden monk's rosary. Its length wrapped about her arm.

"If it was that day. Or the next. Or the next. Who is to say? The spirit waits and chooses its time."

Katara let the ornament unwind and fall into Zuko's hand. He, too, examined the symbol. He recalled the first Aang wore it. That simplicity was a token of humility. It seemed impossible to believe they lived through the end of that era.

"I don't know what I want. The Avatar is endless yet Aang is gone. Sometimes I want to find him. Sometimes I do not want to find him. Maybe...it's not about the Avatar at all..."

Katara looked into a cup of tea Zuko made as if to decipher a meaning out of its swirl of bubble.

"Maybe you want to find comfort in the knowledge that it continues. Maybe the search gives you a purpose to live."

"Yes." She sipped the tea. "Sorry I dragged you into it."

"Don't." They held hand in hand - then their fingers crawled up toward their elbows. "Who would you have asked, anyway? Not too many left that know how to hunt the Avatar."

She smiled and without a thought he replied.

"Let's keep going south. To the Pole. To the Swamp. You know there are water tribe people all over the world. The Avatar could have been reborn anywhere."

Gripping their elbows - and dragging their bodies together - it was the strangest embrace yet neither acknowledged nor broke it. It was inner intimacy expressed outwardly by the defiance of the subconscious.

"Yes - yes, you're right. A whole wide world to search. And you. And me."

Their smiles broadened.

They looked at the wooden airy necklace - that manifestation of kinship - as it twisted about their arms.

And so they sailed not in search of the Avatar but a reason to continue.

**END**


	9. What Will History Say?

**008** **"What Will History Say?"** by **Abraxas** 2010-08-21

A fog clung onto that stretch of forest. Its mist veiled the moon and cloaked the ground. Beyond a tangled, roughened trail little could be seen except the glow of a fire through trees.

Zhao: "You need to convince the general not to abandon the army."

Piandao: "If Jeong Jeong attempted to desert then the matter is settled."

The men trekked a long that abysmal path toward a shack.

"I do not understand the madness of it all. Could it be he was functional yet unstable and we did not understand? Although, I admit, as a recruit I noted a curious fear of fire..."

"Jeong Jeong was a fire bending prodigy, regretfully it appears, a genius consumed by talent. He is tortured by it. But he is not afraid of it. And he sees it differently than you or I."

They reached the shack where a guard stood at its entrance.

It was the dead of night and that wilderness, eerie and alien, suddenly erupted with activity and spooked everybody.

A knock at the entrance and a scroll passed from soldier outside to soldier inside.

"What it will do to morale. The lack of honor is unspeakable. You..."

A puff of smoke came out of the hatchway. The shock of it brought Zhao and Piandao into action. They stormed the dungeon while the soldier raised the alarm.

"- you crazy old man, what is it you do?"

At the end they found the remains of a stockade. Collapsed. Burnt. The glass of a window shattered. A very empty dungeon came into view as the last of the smoke was swallowed away by the night.

"To Jeong Jeong someway, somehow to continue is dishonor - I tell you - he does not see the world like we do."

"A pity." Zhao faced the window where a strand of long white hair remained. "Like a thief into the night stealing the honor of a general. History will not be as kind as you and I."

**END**


	10. A Marriage Of Inconvenience

**009** **"A Marriage Of Inconvenience"** by **Abraxas** 2010-09-02

A hood, red. A face, enshadowed. And a smile that screamed madness. The look said everything.

Chilled by the monster the man felt allured by its danger. Her frame. Her voice. She was like a ruler fallen, bitter.

The Princess took a cabbage as if it were a toy and bounced from hand to hand.

"And just what is your problem with the Avatar?"

His heart skipped. Sweat induced by heat dropped bit by bit. It was a struggle of emotion. How could it be reduced to language the rage that filled his body? But he grabbed the cabbage. And he looked into the eye of the Demon.

The man flung the cabbage at a banner of the Avatar. It hit smack at the goofy toothy smile. A green smear trailed as it fell. Then it caught an ember and flamed. By a weird mix of cause and effect the smile changed to a gasp of fear as the poster burst into flames.

"_Beautiful_!"

Even without introduction it was lust at first bite.

The man tugged off the hood. The woman revealed the monster as the Princess. They kissed. Their unholy union was sealed as it consumed.

She took a bite off a cabbage. He snarled at the sight of it.

"It seems we share a lot in common."

She lit the cabbage. He threw it against the door. They ran behind a shack across the street. Giddy, they watched the monk step out of the house. The Avatar looked about - then below - at the vegetable ablaze.

"Stomp my cabbage...bitch!"

Her eyes bulged, aroused out of their sockets. Her lips curled, revealed teeth like a predator's. A wide, open smile devoured air like a fire raged beyond control. She was maddened by the Avatar's confusion and the man's passion. At last it was too much.

She grabbed the man.

"I _burn_ inside!"

The streets of Ba Sing Se were busy that afternoon when the man carted his wares to market.

"Hey, you, are those for sale?"

That voice - it shrivelled his produce.

"Yes."

"Cool!"

_What a devotion - how I travelled the world to be by you. Avatar! I vow to be avenged. I will not be free of this nightmare while those feet are free to crush my dream._

"These are a little too ripe."

_I fill with rage as you judge my produce - it is like you judge a man._

"Katara may know what to do with these poor old things."

"Excellent."

_Ever since I was a boy I knew I would be a man of cabbage. Walk. Walk. Fly away, my monk. Safe in your empire over this world. But know we plot your doom. And when your mighty powers fail it will be us - the humblest of things providence put upon earth - who pummel you._

She lit the produce. He kicked the cart toward the monk. It crashed then ejected the flaming green missiles at the crowd.

"My cabbages!" he shouted while melting into the crowd.

**END**


	11. Korra's Nightmare

**010** **"Korra's Nightmare"** by **Abraxas** 2010-09-16

She scaled the tower.

He waited alone. Only a mask. Pallid. Barren.

"You!" Korra seethed, brandishing the boomerang, approaching the demon. "The Spider who spun this nightmare."

"I?" Koh laughed. "Where man destroys as sport? Where life yields to death? It is because you failed to teach them the consequence of evil. Avatar...the City is your failure glorified!"

Korra glimpsed what lurked behind the mask.

"Are you not proud?"

Was Koh reduced to a face when inhabiting that world of man?

She struck the mask. It shattered to reveal a void. It swirled caught by a whirlwind. And vanished.

**END**


	12. The Call Of The HawkLizard

**011** **"The Call Of The Hawk-Lizard"** by **Abraxas** 2010-11-10

The journey snaked into thicker and thicker wilderness. The sky, then wide, now thin, admitted only a trickle of sunlight through the filter of canopy. The earth everywhere forever appeared as memory recalled it - except where growth amassed here and there.

Jin wandered alone. Listening. Calling. Waiting. Amid the silence, suddenly, he was aware of the folly of it all.

_What am I doing?_

Jin returned to that sanctuary to remember what it was like to be young. To be thrilled by excitement. To be intoxicated by love. The purest and greatest kind of love! When he smiled as arms fell onto his shoulders. When he lusted as lips brushed against his cheeks. And when he sighed "Wei" as the separation of bodies ceased...

The savage growled - and he longed to _feel_ that sound again.

The tribes would not understand their love. They were boys when it started. Sitting at a log while their parents conferred. Hands met under the blanket of night. Then smiles and kisses and shy, coy touches followed.

_"What are we?"_

Wei did not answer.

Jin nuzzled.

Taut, naked flesh was shared between them.

"What we want to be."

The afterglow was interrupted.

"It's the song of the Hawk-Lizard," Wei said.

"It's the song of Wei and Jin," Jin declared.

The brute roared.

Jin gasped. It was impossible to accept even if the race did not happen. How could it be that Wei was not aged?

"You returned to me!"

Jin wept and Wei gathered his lover into his arms.

Theirs always was a long distance relationship. Fear forced them to travel miles just to be alone. It meant their lives were filled with lies. Soon new lies fed old lies. At the end the facade shattered - the race changed everything.

Wei begged Jin: "Stay with me... Tribes be damned! Look what they did to us."

Jin snapped a daisy off of a bush and weaved it into Wei's pelt.

They were caught at the race by invaders. Wei could not fight the fire. Jin traded the jewel for their lives. A beating followed anyway.

They could not speak the truth. And thought, if they kept quiet then the crisis was bound to pass. Instead, the tribes invented their own stories to reflect their own hatreds. Time. Distance. Life continued. But they did not meet again. It was too painful. Jin did not want to know if Wei's love was dead. To come to their hideaway and be alone would have been such a shame...

That dawn Wei's kiss was fresh on Jin's lips - yet the Zhang was gone.

Jin waited but Wei did not return. Confused, he wandered about that sanctuary, listening, calling, waiting. Then the search ended with the call of the Hawk-Lizard.

The creature was perched atop a grave - it spread orange, green features and flew away.

Jin trembled at the monument to defeated love. "Wei..." he whispered, taking the daisy that had been nestled among the offerings.

**END**


	13. All Sorts Of Places

**012** **"All Sorts Of Places"** by **Abraxas** 2010-11-20

Hamma took a breath and stepped into the inn - the smell of a fire bled through its air.

Nobody could have understood what she felt. Fear. Doom. Deep enough that years of hiding among the enemy, adapting to their way of life did not blunt that threat of discovery.

"Hamma," said Koji. "I missed you today."

They walked past a doorway. A group of men stared. It was the Captain and minions.

Koji and company had been camped at the field Hamma enjoyed. The innkeeper offered the abode. The woman could not object to serve the killers of her friends and family.

That was not the worst of it...

Cloaked by shadow and darkness, he stole a kiss, she played the virgin. They snuck into a closet, as discrete as could be, given that the walls had eyes and ears and the Captain disapproved. They grasped each other by the shoulders. His uniform fell apart to reveal raw, naked flesh. Her flowers tumbled and scattered about the floor. Then they consumed their passion.

Hamma could not forgive herself for loving a soldier of that hated Fire Nation.

* * *

"I don't care...who you were...where you came...just that you're with me."

She kissed his lips. Massaged his arms. Felt his chest. She enjoyed that canvas of taut, smooth skin. A southern water tribe pattern that had been painted over moonlight was smudged beyond recognition under her touch.

Blood swirled through his body - its rhythm filled her with awe at that power revealed through bending.

They reveled at the intimacy of their flesh. He grasped at the wall. She sank onto her knees. Between his legs. Against his waist. She sensed a heat spread up and through her body... Growing. Expanding. Fulfilling.

"You feel it? Inside? Of us?" he asked - she nodded.

She wanted it so that it drove her into madness.

* * *

Koji and company were sent into the forest.

Hamma trekked through the field.

Life grew everywhere and with it came water. Water - spreading, flowing, passing between the atoms of the world - reached into all sorts of places unknown to all. All - except Hamma. A captivity of thirst, deprived of that element, revealed through desperation the depth of Nature.

It was agony to keep that knowledge suppressed.

At the isolation of the field she thought it was safe. She played with the dew that collected among petals. Mists wafted the bloom of spring. Droplets formed and unformed rainbows.

All of a sudden she was grabbed by the arm - and screamed.

* * *

Koji kissed Hamma.

A soldier heard the woman. It was too late - the attack suffered by the Captain was total and savage. The sight of it too ghastly to speak of.

"It must have been the gang we were tracking."

Embraced by Koji, Hamma settled into dream...

What happened had been caused more out of shock than malice. Yet she did not feel guilt. She embraced that insanity of bloodbending. She realized what it was capable of...and craved it.

**END**


	14. It's Not Even Cut

**013** **"It's Not Even Cut"** by **Abraxas** 2010-12-14

Zuko plunged a fist into the fountain and it steamed.

Sokka relaxed as vapor spread about the air.

"At last," he said with a grin, "a good use of jerkbending."

"Jerkbending! Peasant - " Zuko started then ended dragged into the water after yet another _announced_ sneak-attack. "Sokka!"

"Just saying - it would be useful at the pole."

Zuko reclined onto Sokka - prince's back against warrior's thigh - the water was only ankle-deep. Naked, their bodies displayed their cuts, fresh after a round with weapons. They stung as wound brushed against wound and bled into the fountain.

The water-boy found the ointment and dabbed a cloth into it. The fire-boy struggled not to cry as the medicine was applied.

"How did that happen?" he mused about the wound.

* * *

Space-Sword flew at Zuko - its edge bruised an exposed area of chest.

Dueling-Blades split while Sokka did not look and scraped a bit of skin.

Warrior and Prince parted and circled each other. Weapons ready, they tested their attentions, thrusting and retreating where the opportunity arose. They paced and drifted toward the edge of the courtyard. A remote part of the temple, the perfect spot to practice no hold barred style.

* * *

"Yeeeouch!"

"Baby!" Zuko chided, "You didn't yell when I gave it to you."

"What am I supposed to do?" Sokka whined. "It hurts, damn it..."

A fragment of a smile came then vanished off of the exile's face.

* * *

It had been Sokka's idea to spar. Not that Zuko complained. Although everything they did nowadays seemed to be yet another of the tribesman's ideas. They needed that practice - and it was best to fight away from those sensitive of violence. As their torn clothes and scratched skin attested...

Prince tried a last ditch attempt at redemption. Surging toward Warrior, he raised the Right Blade and thrashed the Left Blade - it hit Space-Sword and it rang like a bell. Prince spun as Warrior's grip faded. Alas, as Prince's eyes averted, Warrior crouched and rolled and knocked the opponent onto the ground. Awkwardly the tribesman lunged atop of the exile, their weapons scattered, their hands grappled as they fought body to body.

* * *

"Kiss it," Sokka said. "Kiss it - like mommy used to."

"Baby!" Zuko sighed - yet kissed that cut. "Baby feel better that I kissed the boo-boo?"

Sokka smirked at thought (and actuality) of Zuko baby-talk.

"Almost... What about this?" He pointed to a cut at his arm. It was kissed obediently. "Hm, a big cut needs a big kiss." It was kissed rigorously. "You are good at kissing the boo-boo ... but ... what about this?" He stood - and pointed - while water dripped everywhere. "What are you going to do about this?"

"It's not even cut," Zuko tried to complain.

"Well ... it'll make up for the rest," Sokka replied, raising his eyebrows and crossing his arms. "Well ... I'm waiting..."

Aang stumbled into the courtyard - and retreated. Jaw agape. Eyes shut. Thankfully, the boys were too distracted to notice.

"Hm, like this we won't need jerkbending to keep warm."

**END**


	15. Night Into Day

**014** **"Night Into Day"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2011-01-15

A week's trek revealed a horizon jagged with the spine of a range. He journeyed further and deeper until he ambled through abysmal and cyclopean passages. Soon ice faded into rock and its transition revealed a trail.

Sokka realized he found that part of the world seen only by ancestors like Hakoda and Kuruk.

A rumble echoed out of the canyon.

Sokka grasped the boomerang, wizened like the man, and wondered what could be alive within that realm...

* * *

It seemed like that stop at the village came from the memory of another's life. There were choices and transformations from one existence to the next. And they were one-way adventures. He knew as he took that step out of the tribe, into the wilderness that there could be no return.

It was pointless to deny the inevitable. He was dying and vowed not to be found. He wanted to pass like a warrior, silent and alone... There would be no body to mourn.

So he turned toward the mountains.

Onyx skies sparkled with unnumbered stars while clouds slithered across the vista and filled the air with a deep, guttural roar.

He did not stop to look behind - the settlement was already afar and the image of the girl gazing aloft would have been obscured.

* * *

The reality that the end was near added its own dimension of intensity to the struggle. The beast was a creature of flesh and blood as its innards attested. The fight was ugly doubtless as survival itself. He fancied it must have been that way since the dawn of the hunter. At length the fight cost him the use of an arm yet it was the animal that gasped its last breath within its den full of bones.

Sokka lurched, dripping blood that left a trail black against white across the snow.

A final climb awaited.

He he recalled: "I will see you again!"

Korra glarred at the chief.

He saw the steely, cool determination within that girl's eyes and knew if anyone were to upend the roles of sex it would be she.

He wrapped his arms about the girl and whispered a word.

Did she know of her destiny even at that age?

* * *

Sokka staggered beyond the ridge. Following that path, he descended from the crest to the basin. The valley was thin and narrow and encased with snow. All about its field he was greeted with the remnants of the ages. Weapons. Armors. All of which gradually became more and more familiar.

Weakening. Stumbling. He searched in vain for his father. Surely, he hoped, he must have outsmarted that creature...

At length, ebbed and drained, he stopped.

With a roar the day broke through the night. Light swept the crypt. And he joined with history.

**END**


	16. Everything Will Be OK

**015** **"Everything Will Be OK"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2011-01-27

He knew exactly when and where and how it happened. Like every other triumph - and tragedy - of his life, he replayed the event ... again and again. Soon the want of its fulfillment formed into a new and different obsession. Obsession which threatened to consume him mind and body.

Naturally, given the war and the world, he sought to kill that urge.

Zuko and Mai were brought into courtship and it seemed everybody celebrated that occasion. They were deeply unsatisfied. She sensed. He knew. Love between women and men was not strong enough to suppresses what the obsession awoke.

Gods - the moment! - the instant! - that event. It stoked a desire which if known would be called a scandal. The preference was not unnatural. Rather, it was not the kind of life expected of a Fire-Lord.

Yet - he cursed at a fate that refused to be kind. Life was his. His to chose or not to chose.

The obsession - its need, its attraction - sprang out of just a little contact. A tap of fists. Neither acknowledged that touch. As their lives were endangered by dragons it should have been an afterthought.

Indeed - passing, fleeting as it was, to Zuko the bond extended beyond a few blinks of the eye. Could it be that repetition added more and more to its catalog of detail? It was like an image that evolved. Soon the memory was that they did not withdraw. That they sought each other - that their hands clutched, their fingers latched wishing to extend and savor the last iota of contact as they parted.

Zuko never felt such peace as when they touched. He could have died then and there - inside a rainbow of fire - without a worry as they were (and would be) together!

Time was slipping, slipping. Still - how to approach the subject? What to say? What to do? And what if his love were unrequited? But he had to know! And like a bolt out of the blue Zuko reached toward Aang.

"Now we are friends."

Zuko's hand fell to Aang's shoulder, then teetered somewhere between action and inaction. Until he touched the chin and raised the face - and leaned into a kiss. There had been no resistance so, emboldened, fire embraced air.

Sighs mixed with waves of warmth passing from body to body.

Startled - the crowd beyond the curtain brought them out of their hug. All of sudden aware of their actions they felt a tint of shame. Opting to look aside, away, instead of at each other.

"Ever since that day we danced with the dragons - I wanted you..."

Aang took Zuko's hand - an eternity could have been built from what that intimacy revealed. Fingers dug into knuckles until palm met palm and they felt the weight of their arms.

Aang giggled and Zuko knew that what ever happened now it would be OK.

**END**


	17. The Story About The Stache

**016** **"The Story About The Stache"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2011-02-06

"You deny it?" Toph continued, biting into a nut.

Katara glared - face knotted, annoyed. "I don't have a thing for Haru!"

She smirked, flipping another leechee - MoMo burst out ofher cloak and caught it.

"Right. And you don't have feelings for Zuko and Jet."

Katara launched into that child.

"Ain't no difference, love and hate, let's not get sidetracked. Zuko and Jet I understand." She reclined against the wall. "Haru? Haru. Haru!" MoMo crawled below her shirt, jostling and cozying, poking his head above her collar. "Unless you just don't care - OMG - boy crazy Katara!"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Katara stormed out of the atrium.

_I don't have a thing for Haru!_ She stomped through a corridor where Aang and company gazed toward sunset. _I can't have a thing for Haru._ They avoided the blizzard as it dredged deeper and deeper into the temple. _Why would I have a thing for Haru? A thing for Haru..._ She stopped; amid the shadow and darkness a crisp trickle of water splashed her face. _Where does Toph get off projecting like that? Besides - the stache does not count. It's just that..._ She wiped her face with that water, aware of a scent. An aura. Like incense mixed with ... beach? Well - nuns _and monks_ apparently were into fragrance. _Gods - that stache! Where did it come? What did it mean?_

Katara followed that scent into levels known only to the initiates of a long extinguished race.

Confounded by the mystery of the stache, she wondered. What it felt like? _Oh, Haru, to be fondling that stache while you're trapped, yes, helpless ... and can't do a damn thing about it! Well - I'm sure you won't mind ... yeah._

A voice echoed out of a doorway. Startled, Katara stopped. "Haru?" As if it could be. Why, Katara and Haru, alone, together, with that stache? Alone together where nobody could have found them? Alone together with enough time, perhaps, to explore that stache? Impossible - she must have imagined . Clearly, it was a Harustache of the mind!

That voice - returned - and it was Haru!

At length voice became words, became conversations. Yet - who could be with Haru at that time and space? Fevered with thoughts of molesting that stache, Katara did not care. Rather, she peeked into the chamber thinking: _I'm going to find out what you'remade of!_

The scene was framed by candlelight - Haru sitting in front of a mirror, Katara fleeing with a scream.

It was a nightmare that exploded into the world of flesh and blood. So vivid. So real. Gods, it was worse than what happened with Toph and MoMo! Haru, fondling the length of the stache. The stache, twitching at the attention gotten of the boy. And then came the climax of that depravity - while the boy cooed like a girl in the arms of a lover, the stache itself spoke!

"Stroke me, again, Haru. Tell me how ... dashing ... I am!"

**END**


	18. Sokka Meets Ursa

**017** **"Sokka Meets Ursa"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2011-02-26

Sokka awoke to the rattle of thunder and lightning. The storm which brewed that night that day unleashed its furry. Now, lost inside that cave's abyss of onyx, its only sound the splatter of rain, he sighed - the journey to Ba Sing Se was (again) delayed.

Too late to sleep, he set to work - organizing the camp, feeding the ostrich-horse - and noted that she vanished.

"Oh, enigma, gone already?"

She had been vague. Where she came from. Where she ventured to. She wouldn't say and just timidly accepted his offer of company to Ba Sing Se.

"I need to see the King," Sokka explained, stoking the fire.

She stared at the shivering, flickering flame. A familiarity clung about her - more intimation than similarity - yet... He couldn't say what inspired it beyond that tug of instinct. It wouldn't be quelled regardless of how he rationalized away the feeling.

"A dangerous journey, my young warrior," Ursa injected. "It's impossible to enter the city."

"Depends, anyway, I got a few maneuvers."

They shared a cut of dinner. As they ate beside the fire, her blanket tumbled and revealed her earthy, orange cloak. It was damaged, torn and ripped, after that robbery he thwarted along the road.

"I'm on a mission with the Avatar."

"You know the Avatar?"

"Yes." He reclined against the ostrich-horse and bit into a giant crispy bug. "My sister and I found the kid inside an iceberg."

Indeed, recalling that night's conversation, the Avatar wasn't everything to spark that woman's attention.

Another burst of thunder and lightning.

Sokka, convinced she fled into the wilderness, kept his concern out of his mind until that blast alarmed it. The cave's wide jagged mouth called and he answered. He had to look outside; if just to find food and water. And maybe she would be there?

Despite the storm, and everything its rages stirred, the cave at the hilltop proved to be advantageous. His well-trained eye read the landscape like a book. Already he found a dozen ways to escape that valley. If only it wasn't raining...

Sokka spotted a shape at a crest and wandered toward it. Through the cool, summer gale. Against a wall of rain.

It was Ursa at the edge, facing the whirlwind above while below the ground smoked, scorched.

"Is it true that a prince joined the Avatar?"

"Zuko?"

It was as if he uttered a spell and the air was sucked out of the cave. He caught a glimpse of her face, her eyes... She reflected a train of emotion from extreme to extreme.

Why? he wondered. Maybe, a victim of the Fire Nation, she resented Zuko with Aang?

"I'll go with you."

Ursa acknowledged Sokka.

"My Lady," the warrior said, wrapping his coat about her body, noticing the mending of her garment.

Nobility - yes, that's what felt familiar.

She clasped his cold hand with her warm hand: "I am very much interested about your adventures, my young warrior, especially with what happened at the fire nation."

**END**


	19. Is She Beautiful?

**018** **"Is She Beautiful?"** by **Dr. Abraxas**2011-09-01

Kuruk drew onto shore - a stretch of onyx between water and earth. The island was deserted. To the north - a cliff. To the south - a basin. Everything battered by age. The Avatar trekked across its polarscape aware of scars suggesting kills.

"Koh, I won't," said the man atop a bed of pelt.

A fire, fed of timber, crackled.

"Kuruk, you will," said the creature - amorphous.

The Avatar found a pass. Its coat of winter masked that trail. Snaking in. Ascending to. At a crest it revealed that volcano. He felt its stir - its power - that ached release...

The cavern's familiar azure tint flickered. Out of the ice something gathered, collected. Willed itself alive. A form proportioned as human appeared. Yet its iridescence revealed its nature.

"Koh," gasped Kuruk.

The demon, as if its senses were incomplete, smiled. The man approached. They embraced. Koh's face against Kuruk's chest.

"I did not know about love until you." The creature stroked the Avatar's stubble. "I feared it would be the end when you assumed left to train."

Kuruk released the boat - and slipped onto its deck. The wind shook his braids. The cold, arctic drops stabbed his face.

"Is it hard to continue this? Avatar you may be but you are mortal, too, and weak."

Koh grasped Kuruk at the back of the head. There it combed through unkempt raven extravagance. Groping. Fondling. As the man tensed the creature bit its lip. Then with a gasp the human released that strain. Sweat dropped, dripped like rain from tawny to ashy skins.

That fire died.

He stood at the ledge of the cavern. Beyond the world was abyss. Visions of stars and other, celestial wonders swept into view. He imagined if there were such worlds, such vistas - if the universe itself was just ocean.

"I could be anything - male, female - what is shape to me? It is only for you! It is not enough, Kuruk? Koh is not enough!" The creature traced evidences of battles adorning flesh where it had been virginal once upon a time. "I was just a crush a boy used to nurse. It could not last yet for a while it was like eternity to me." It clasped the man at the waist. It kissed that cut bud of mortality.

Kuruk was a teen when he stumbled onto that island. Storm chased right into Koh at the cavern. Nobody knew of it. Although they wondered why he returned to its coast again and again.

"There can be no other, Koh, nothing could be what you are to me."

Waves crashed and spread foam across that beach where the dent of a vessel used to be.

"Is she beautiful?" Koh recalled.

That morning it was only a heap of ash that awaited - not their ritual of touch and kiss that marked their departure.

Not even the scent of man remained...

"You will be mine, I promise," the demon vowed, "you will not leave me! I haunt you as you haunt me..."

**END**


	20. A Lot

**019** **"A Lot"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2011-11-02

Zuko remained at the window in spite of the storm.

Sokka wandered into that chamber unsurprised at the sight.

The figure against the frame - eyes defied, arms crossed - transfixed to that which vexed its mind.

About them that retreat was a void of shadow and darkness. Lifeless except where the storm vented its rage. What rattle... The rumble of thunder. The flash of lightning.

"You need to smile," the warrior said approaching the exile.

A smell of beach was fresh as droplets here and there added their rhythmic, icy flavor to that decor. From the environment, too, came an air of gloom that reflected, as if exerted through will, the temperament of the house's would be master.

"No, I don't," Zuko said at Sokka.

Sokka, as though birthed and awashed by the storm, glistened with its element.

"You need to smile... You don't want your face to stay that way," and, immediately, the word was regretted.

Zuko turned to Sokka.

"I think it's too late," Zuko replied.

Since their escape out of the Rock that attitude was a fixture. At their reunion and beyond it seemed that while they were growing together at the left they were drifting apart at the right... Sokka wondered about Zuko. Was family that hard to grasp? Or did the sight of it only magnify what fate denied?

It was then without warning that Sokka gave Zuko a kiss.

Exile jerked at Warrior but did not resist the contact.

"What was that for?"

Sokka grasped Zuko at the waist - "No reason... You just need to be kissed. A lot."

**END**


	21. Rhythm Of Nature

**020** **"Rhythm Of Nature"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2011-12-03

The hatch yielded to the force applied.

They raised it enough to peek through its gap - a fragrance of jasmine awaited. They moved it away - confident that area was isolated. Then, they remained, seated at its rim, as the solitude was interrupted by that cool summer air. Both appeared to forget the chill common at that level of city.

Zuko scooted to Sokka. Their legs touched at the knees. Their hands exploring, finding each other. They sat obscured within that patch of forest that remained of Gyatso's park. Afar, filtered through vegetation, came the flicker of campfire. That was the site of the fire realm youth at the end of its Avatar Day activity. It dwindled and faded as night arose.

Suddenly the sky cracked and they gazed onto its void.

"Come," Zuko said to Sokka .

"You ARE adventurous tonight."

The night was without its moon. Just the swirls stars awaited. And the meanders they formed, like pathways, into deeper and greater mystery.

"Can you imagine that loneliness?"

Zuko smiled a reply; Sokka tapped their noses together.

Their lips parted at admit a breath.

Zuko gazed above from below. Sokka's eyes - wide as if to gasp - rivalled the stars. That face lowered its sight with its tongue to trace naked swaths of neck with kisses.

A streak of warmth coursed across the field. Trees fretted. Stirred life... A chord of music emerged, spontaneously, out of the chaos of the sound that followed. The event was to such an immensity as the universe as insubstantial as the rhythm of elements were to a man. Yet to the lovers who paused at its wake such a melody could have spanned eternity.

The Prince clasped tight, tight at the head and waist. The Warrior clutched at the grass - fingers clawed into dirt like roots. Then, for no more than an instant, a moment ... they added their duet to the rhythm of Nature.

**END**


	22. Reunion

**021** **"Reunion"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2012-01-02

She heard the ocean ere anything.

At the end of the trail she paused. The trek was like it had been as a child, returning from yet another botched runaway. As an adult, homecoming came with a new and different dimension of dread. It was that solitude - to be certain she expected that void - now it could not be denied, now it was more real than imagined. She knew the woman was gone.

She approached the gate and felt a wave reverb through her body.

"Child."

It was a man, his heft still dominated those a quarter of his age.

She smiled even as a tear welled and marked the uniform - its only flaw.

"I knew you would be first," said The Pebble; he took her hand and gazed at her face - a sight years and years unseen. "Ah, Captain, is it?"

They walked along the house that overlooked the beach. Its view of the west was unparalleled. How the woman appreciated it they could not say. Through their own, quiet ways they did not contemplate why an earth bound bender would have wanted to be so close to water.

"Your mother was proud of you."

"I think, I think ... she showed it ... as best she could."

"Aye, as best she could," he wrapped an arm about her shoulder, content to walk the surf with Toph's only daughter.

"Where?"

He tightened the grip a moment.

"You know what she felt about tradition. She made the Avatar sink her into the abyss."

A hawk flew into the courtyard. It carried a note from the brothers - they would be at the house by evening.

At the tearoom she studied portraits of friends and family. A single image was missing - gods, she could not forget that man's face, his youth, his gaze, like a warrior. Looking about what remained she could not help rediscover the fact. The boys looked like the father. The girl only resembled the mother.

"Kuai," she called.

"I know what you want to ask," he stroked a patch of beard, giving a smile, beckoning to approach. "Haven't you always been my girl?"

They sat at the couch.

"Out of a universe of man she picked me to be the father, your father. And we loved each other - as intensely as we battled. But, yes, there had been another, a first true love. She never said who it was. I was too afraid to ask. For who ever it could have been ... he was the only man to made her weep and there I dared not venture too far."

Tears came freely out of them in the safety of their company.

"Maybe it was a love that could not be? Or... Taken away too soon. You know ... I think he was always here."

"Aye - she got you from him - she wanted to keep you forever. Could be why she was so tough with you."

There was a pause through which only the fire emoted.

"I think she's with him again."

**END**


	23. The Event

**022** **"The Event"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2012-01-28

It was crazy, thought Sokka... Morning was a chore - especially given a lack of sleep. It was worse when it was so, so early morning. And, apparently, without a reason to be awake. Zuko, though, would not stop and eventually he could not resist the alarm created by his shaking and dragging.

"You certainly are happy to see whatever it is," Sokka quipped as he was led by Zuko as if his arm were his leash. "I thought you were never happy?"

"Who says I am?"

Their voices, as their footsteps, echoed lazily about the corridor.

"Says I."

"It's a very, very rare event, Sokka, we need to hurry," Zuko urged.

The water-boy freed his arm - then crossed it.

"What's so special about the event?"

"It only happens twice a year..."

The fire-boy grabbed, taking the waist of the other.

The only resistance was a raised eye brow...

At length their ascent was halted by a doorway. Twilight oozed through the gaps of the frame. And the mist of water, too, drifted fresh out of the ocean. That hatch parted with a growl - beyond awaited a chamber. It had been a study when the temple was used.

Zuko led Sokka by the wrist to a window where they huddled at its ledge to get a view of the event.

"I discovered it by accident the first chance I got to explore the temple," the prince confessed. "It was so weird but so awesome. I thought you'd like to see it."

"OK."

"The vantage is awkward 'cause the bottom is the top here..."

"OK."

Somewhat sleepily, Sokka leaned against Zuko.

"It starts - there - at those islands just beyond the shore... The gap between them is so straight and narrow."

The warrior gazed - and blinked as suddenly the horizon cleared and those first ray of sun penetrated entirely through the gap between the islands. A beam of yellow against the wet sloppy fabric of onyx that became the face of the ocean...

"The sun, you know, it's a fire thing..."

Zuko looked aside at Sokka as the glow bathed his face with the light of fire. Pure. Pure. Fire.

The tribesman smirked.

"Well?"

"What?"

The exile barely reacted.

"It's a fire thing, huh, you dragged us to 'the event'," he added the quote, "and you're just going to stare at me?"

"Not just going..."

Zuko leaned into Sokka.

"You look incredible with that fire."

A kiss sealed the lust the visage of fire against water evoked within Zuko.

Sokka elbowed into and tumbled onto the other - he sealed the triumph with a kiss.

"One of these mornings, I swear it..." Sokka turned aside, resting head against chest atop Zuko. "I'm going to drag you out of sleep..." he snoozed.

**END**


	24. Rage

**023** **"Rage"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2012-02-07

That day Master Yu brought along a student - a star - the best that school offered.

Of course, nobody ... _nobody_ ... talked about Toph.

Secluded to a garden, that tiny, fragile girl ambled, detached and seemed to only admire Nature. Water trickled into a fountain. Air ruffled against flowers. Shrubs here and there buzzed with life. To the guard everything appeared to be at peace yet within the girl _raged_...

She clutched at the ground - the earth giving away to touch as if it were air. Through a grin, enshadowed, hating and hating the world with a fire that would not die, she wanted to scream if just to prove she existed. Maybe... Maybe if she screamed then her parents would be forced to act and so in front of their guests reveal their truth.

Oh, scandal! she could have laughed...

Instead she felt the "star" shuffle into a corridor. Then, came the conversation.

She saw it, all of it, straight through that element of earth almost as though imagining what happened. Her mother - oh so worried, so afraid for that child. Her father - oh so resolute that that girl only practice those skills of infants. Toph was just too ... too delicate ... too tiny and fragile ... for an element so _earthy_. And Master Yu. He scratched the stubble of the chin and she felt it as the rumble of thunder.

Toph flung the earth at the wall where it splattered like water though not a sound escaped her wide, open mouth.

"What is it? What is it? Toph," the guard, alerted, rushed into the garden.

That flower, wrapped by its gown, fainted a smile out of a muted expression.

"It's nothing... I'm sorry..."

**END**


	25. The Owl and The Man

**024** **"The Owl And The Man"** by **Dr. Abraxas**2012-02-25

That part of the Library was cold. Foxes avoided it yet he ventured into its void. Strangely, everything seemed familiar, he could have sworn it. He turned and stopped dead at a corner. It was shadow within shadow - a figure encrusted by sand. He wondered if he were alone...

† † † †

Zei attained everything. Others would have cursed fate. Zei did not realize confinement - rather, that Library unveiled freedom. Freedom to roam worlds through volumes too vast to devour within a lifetime. Aeons could not wither its variety.

He salivated as foxes gathered.

† † † †

That figure buried remained unmoved. It had been a trespasser no doubt. Alone, across spans of times undreamt of, he watched as it lost more and more of its humanity. Consumed like fire turned wood into ash.

† † † †

Foxes helped the man to read. Into the ear they uttered whispers. Then, little by little their meanings sunk into the brain. Until it was that he became aware of the words as if they came out of the work without intervention. And with that insight a light appeared - had it always existed? - he could not say...

† † † †

At the chasm he stared through a skylight filled with the sparkle of the universe.

A form appeared, spreading its wings. A trove of treasure and other alien trinkets tumbled onto the floor at its talons. Foxes scattered the volumes away except the book the man held against the starlight.

"Amazing! How far does man reach?"

"Too far." Beak lowered onto shoulder. Wings embraced and drew nearer, nearer. "You need not worry."

† † † †

Was it day? night? Time passed without notice. The world felt dim as he could not read the offerings of the Library. Still, he ferreted about, wishing and hoping to find a way out of the shadow...

"You wish to stay?" asked the owl. "Do you not remember? Do you not care?"

The man recalled that day. The Library shaking, sinking. The corridors filling with sand. He shut his eyes and shuddered. The memory remained, to be certain, yet distant as if to be another lifetime.

"All I offer is myself. Entirely. All of my knowledge."

The owl sighed.

† † † †

He settled onto a corner. A company of foxes huddled nearby. Their chatter transforming from inexplicable to language... Wings withdrew as a fox appeared and beckoned to join. Owl released and he crawled toward the messenger - toward the pile. They allowed him to enter and entangle. In the void what were the differences? Between animal and human bodies? The separation dissolved away and the memory of what it was to be a man extinguished.

† † † †

Soon the figure was dust and he wondered why he went to that part of the Library anyway...

† † † †

"What was that?"

The Library shook. Shelves tumbled. Volumes scattered.

"The end."

Above, the skylight expanded. Its view of the universe evoked wonder - and fright - with its deep reds, its bright whites and shades of yellow splattered against onyx.

"What will happen?"

"Hold... Tight," said the owl as evaporated with the man...

**END**


	26. Regret Nothing

**025** **"Regret Nothing"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2012-04-21

Shadow pierced onto ice - the shape of the vessel kissed land. 

† † † †

Zuko was let into the abode by a child. Alone, Katara rested a hand onto that face, touch clasped touch then and a kiss was given to that palm.

"I meant to return," he said.

"You stepped aside?" she asked.

"It was time. It was time..." 

† † † †

Sun kissed but did not consummate the horizon. A glow like the color of flame spread across the canvas of snow. A stiff, cool air issued yet further and further southward, out of peaks so distant as to be illusion.

Zuko sighed - the pole and its desolation captivated as it terrified.

Suddenly it felt as if the water more tightly, more intimately embraced...

At the end of the spring, where winter melted into summer, Katara stood only wait deep into the pool. He watched the woman, rapt, as she stroked fingers through strands.

"What is it?" Katara asked as a smile came to Zuko. "And what can you possibly see in me?"

"What I've always seen in you." 

† † † †

Katara and Zuko approached; it was midnight and the sky was an abyss of starlight - an infinite sea of which they were speak of void.

Only the faint, eerie luminance of space and time revealed the statue at the square of the village.

"Somewhere in side of that city I stand with fire." He paused to light an offering to the Avatar. Their Avatar. "I don't know what's become of the world. I don't know what's become of me. I am afraid, Katara. It's... as if it was not meant that we exist without Aang. Do you feel that sometimes? "

She grasped his hand. He raised his face.

"Do you think about what could have been between us?"

"I do. Zuko... There is always a place in my heart for you. You know that. You know that! It cannot be otherwise."

They leaned into a kiss and remained, together, embraced at the foot of a statue that had been willed out of stone.

"I was relieved when it was Tenzin," he confessed.

"It was the most, most difficult months of not knowing. But you two were there with me. And..."

"And if the child had been ours?"

"Oh, yes, yes I would have, Zuko -"

"As I would have, Katara."

Suddenly it felt as if the ground quaked with that revelation.

"- regret - nothing, nothing." 

† † † †

Shadow departed - and as everything that was and would be between them, their union stolen out of a world that did not notice it, came to pass as ethereal as a breath.

**END**


	27. This Way We Are

**026** **"This Way We Are"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2012-06-05

Zuko aimed eyes at the roof of the teepee. At that peak, a jagged frame of sky, daylight shined azure. Wispy filaments of clouds swirled across the view of the window. Air -

"What about Mai?"

Like a bolt it came out of nowhere.

Zuko arched against that spread of fur used as a bed, searching for the answer to the question.

"What's to say? Just the game of politics... We needed to do it."

"Yeah, I know about that." Sokka sighed - eyes twinkled like crests of waves as lids tightened. "It's a game nobody wins at the end."

"What about Suki?"

Smiling, the chief's hand slid to the lord's hand, tapping, tapping its reply though a language known only to touch, knuckle to knuckle.

"It's perfect with us, you know, a mutual fulfillment of duty and appearance."

Zuko chuckled. Sinking into that fur he noticed a flap of tunic which came to be lose. Instinctively, he folded the fabric, swiping up and down, pressing tight a crease that action formed along Sokka's chest. Fingers. Palms. Hands. Exploring those details... Propelled as if by its own volition, touch slid beneath airy turquoise cotton onto a place which invited deeper and deeper intimacy.

"...wow... Zuko, smiling... mister 'I'm never happy'..."

"Stop it - I do too smile - I was just thinking about the Rock and that night you came into my cell. That way your hand found my hand. And would not let go... And how it's always places like that, like this, in shadow and in darkness, where nobody watches, that's where we're free." Another spell of silence settled as the workings of Nature unfolded in and out of the teepee. "I love that at least it isn't awkward between us."

Sokka laughed: "Are you telling the jokes, now, Zuko? Do you know how awkward it is - to fight the need - to keep from holding, grabbing on to you - when I see the man I love - THE MAN I LOVE!" Chief clutched Lord by the wrist - "like this" - eyes looked up from fur to face. The gaze lingered like that of an artist studying and committing the detail of those features. As if yearning a power to recreate a Zuko perfect in each and every aspect - to summon along those gulfs of time when their lives took them apart. "The shame that we can be with others but not with each other..."

Zuko squeezed arms about Sokka's waist.

"Suki's pregnant," the warrior uttered between the breaths of kisses. "You're the father," he confessed with a blush. "It was you who escaped my lips. These lips. These lips," he paused, pressing brow to brow with his lover. "That's us, isn't it, this way we are."

**END**


	28. Each Other

**027** **"Each Other"** by **Dr. Abraxas** 2012-06-30

A kiss of fire raged across that sky, from horizon to horizon, its arid shade of yellow reflected earth withered and bleached into ash...

Covered by a wrap, Hakoda tread that wasteland. Braving the heat, the wind - and its howl. Traveling was a risk to everyone, even the Avatar.

Only a generation ago that mountain retained its green; rich with tea grown along its slope. Nothing of that remained save a handful of folk too stubborn to leave. Villages scattered here and there. Roads that meandered through passes where the plantations used to be.

He continued. At the bend, that trail skirted water. At the crest, that dome came into view. The sand did not yet consume that structure. He pressed the fur onto the face as he fought the wind and slumped toward an overhang which gave a promise of relief.

The wind simply howled like a maddened instrument as it surged through crevices.

The Avatar pressed a button and a doorway appeared.

The sand fanned as it spread along the floor.

Into the structure. Out of the cloak he slipped. A glass revealed his complexion caked with ash.

Hamma approached with only a smile.

"You are so full of life," he smiled as she brushed the ash off the tip of the chin.

She did not ask directly; the eyes revealed everything.

"It's only you, and me, each other."

All of man's power could not stop the cataclysm of events unleashed by time. Ages had been piled upon ages. Growths. Deaths. Rebirths... In truth, though, nothing was forever.

Along the thousands of years since the change to the sun was noted, fleets with citizens of all of the nations fled into the stars. Their journeys were uncertain... Within that vast sea of space and time, would there be other worlds, other oases of life, able to sustain those refuges of earth? And if there were the possibility of a new start was humanity bound to splinter and evolve into paths so divergent they would not remember who they used to be or where they came from? Could it be they were already descended of the stars and just as ignorant of their ancestors?

Hakoda shook out of a dream.

The bedroom was bathed by orange - the sun grew another size.

The last of the fleet left a decade ago. Again Hakoda regretted that he did not force Hamma to go. She insisted she was of the earth. He felt then and there the responsibility to be that strong.

Suddenly the howl of the wind ceased - they clung to each other, woman and man.

How long was left now?

Hakoda sunk into Hamma's arms...

**END**


End file.
